Calculating 52! by Hand

Jan 1, 2017

It’s easy - calculate 54!, then divide by 53 and 54.

52! is the number of possible arrangements of a deck of cards.

To see why, let’s say you pick cards at random from one deck and add them to another, initially empty, deck. First card can be any of 52, second card can be any of 51 remaining, and so on until there is only one card left. So total number of possible arrangements is